Get up to 30% off at these Teachers Pay Teachers stores for Back to School!

Have you heard the great news? Teachers Pay Teachers is offering a 10% off promo code for the week of 8/1-8/6 for Back to School, and many sellers are placing their entire stores on sale for an additional percentage to add to your savings! The Smarty Pants Teaching Resources store (Anna's store) will be 20% off, making your total savings 30% off! What a great deal! Don't miss out on the sale, and please check out all of the other stores on sale below!

The TpT promo code for 10% off is: B1T1S


Game Subject Predicate Grammar File Folder Center Literacy Sentences


Fall -Winter Ordered Pairs Pack Bundle Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas


Smarty Pants Teaching Blog


Smarty Pants Teaching Store on TpT

Special thanks to Carolyn Wilhelm from The Wise Owl Factory for creating the graphics and compiling all of the links for this list!


Wise Owl Factory on TpT

Wise Owl Factory Book a Day Blog

The 10% OFF promo code will be B1T1S and be good from the 1st-6th
Science Stuff Store on TpT Biology Introduction Complete Unit Plan 20Products The Ultimate Lab Safety Bundle for Science Teachers Metric System Scientific Measurement Unit Plan of 12 Products Science Stuff Blog	Sunny Days Store on TpT What's in a Name Glyph Activity Packet Poetry Center Task Cards Back to School Fishy Friends Game Sunny Days in Second Grade Blog	Lisa Michalek's TpT Store  17 Graphing Practice Lessons and 26 Pages of Graphing Test Prep Full Year Biology Lesson Plans Power Point Presentations Note Outlines Intro To Biology and Characteristics of Living Things Unit Bundle The Lesson Guide Blog by Lisa Michalek
Lisa Pagano's TpT Store Think-Tac-Toe-Bundle Differentiated Literacy Activities for Any Text   Literacy Activities Using Thinking Maps    Sentence Starters for Paideia Seminars	Rundes Room TpT Store Reading Comprehension Strategy Resource Binder Literacy Elements Resource Binder 11 Themed Kooshball Templates for your SMARTboard   Runde's Room Blog	Rachel Lynette's TpT Store Beginning of the Year Activities   Any List Spelling Activities 150 Creative and Critical Thinking Cards Minds in Bloom Blog
Spanish Plans Store on TpT Spanish Speaking Activities Spanish Projects Spanish Bell Ringers Spanish Plan's Blog	Shelley Gray's TpT Store Student Portfolios: A Collection of Printables for Throughout the Year Animal Habitats Mini-Unit: Balanced Literacy ArtScience Number of the Day: Developing Number Sense Numbers from 1 to 50 Teaching In the Early Years Blogspot	Krystal Mills' TpT STore Classroom and Behavior Management Package Translations, Reflections, Rotations, and Graphing Activities Package Geometry Review: 8 Math Centers
Teacher Tam Store on TpT Printable Beginning Readers Sets 123 At One Low Price Preschool-Kindergarten-First Grade Reading Math Games SAVE ON BOTH Kindergarten Sight Word Books BUY ALL 5 SETS AND SAVE Teacher Tam's Educational Adventures Blogspot	TpT Store for Karla Banks Daily Essential Vocabulary Action Verbs and Keith Haring 7th Grade Bell Assignments Life in Special Education Blogspot	TpT Store for Lori Wolfe  Irregular Past Tense Verb Game: Grammar and Vocabulary Unit Plan Reflexive Pronouns ELD-ESL: Grammar Unit and Lesson Plan Place Value with 3 Digit Numbers Games and Lesson Plans, Math Games
The Teaching Bank Store on TpT  Scrabble Math Literacy Activities Alien Text Talk Full Year Daily Language Practice Grammar and Spelling Mr. Popper's Penguins Novel Teaching Unit The Teaching Banks' Blog	TpT Store for Ruth S  FAIRY TALES WORKSHEETS PACKET   NOVEL RESPONSE CARDS BLOOM BALL REPORTS	Effective Teaching Solutions on TpT  Reading Tracker Bookmarks for Students Reading Workshop Task Menu Recording Sheets Grades 4-5 ROCK-n-ROLL Classroom Theme Back to School Effective Teaching Solutions Blog
TpT Store Enlightened Elephant  Spanish Greetings and Farewells and Basic Introductions Packet Telling Time in Spanish Fun Thematic Unit Bundle Solve Systems of Equations Resource and Activity Packet The Enlightened Elephant's Blog	Mrs. Magee Store on TpT  Fabulous Fairy Tales Unit Ideas for 10 Fairy Tales The Great Poetry Race Fluency Kit Addition and Subtraction Mystery Pictures First Grade Brain Blog	Heidi Raki Store on TpT  36 Week Reading Response Journal Read-Aloud Journal: A Simple Way to Teach Reading Strategies Writing Journal Genre Infomational or Expository Raki's Rad Resources Blog
TpT Store: Addie Williams Poetry Package 7 Assignments to Engage and Involve Students Projects for ANY Novel: Creative and Unique Worksheets Past-Present-Future Poster Start-up Activity Art Writing Addie Education on Facebook	Teacher Browne on TpT Back to School Unit September Complete Poetry Unit Literature Worksheets for Any Book	Truth Me on TpT  Mayflower Mayhem Podcast Classroom Package American History Reading Introduction Power Point and Daily Use Skill Bookmarks Reading Skills Power Point Game Full Version Schoolbox Treasure's Blog
DConway TpT Store  Back to School with Miss Bindergarten Back to School ABC's of Kindergarten Handbook Ready for Summer Math and Literacy Center Peace, Love, and Learning Blog	Vintage Teacher TpT Store  Greatest Common Factory and Least Common Multiple Four-in-a-Row Game Gallon Castle A Story of One Family in Capacity Kingdom Time Center Activity: Racing Fun With Time Vintage Teacher Blog	TpT Store Rebecca Bettis  Welcome Back to School Activities for the First Day and Beyond Wild About Learning Wild Animals Safari Jungle Classroom Theme A-Dino-Mite-Year Dinosaur Classroom Theme
TpT Store Beverly Brooke  50 Spelling Homework Assignments for Any List Antonym Power Point and Worksheets Compound Word Power Point	TpT Store Hilary Lewis  Reading Record-and-Response Book with Graphic Organizers Daily 5 Chart Management System for Kids to Monitor Daily Activities Colors and Color Words Sorting Mats Circus Rockin' Teacher Materials Blog	Amanda Myers' TpT Store  How to Make SMores Interactive Easy Readers Pet Math Work Station Activities Big Chickens Fly the Coop Shared Reading Plans A Special Kind of Class Blog
Victoria Leon's TpT Store  Teaching Tips from an Award Winning National Board Certified Teacher Test Prep Tournaments for Any Grade and Subject Word Problem of the Day 200 Word Problem Charts The Best of Teachers Pay Teachers Blog	SciPi's Store on TpT   Angles Geometry Hands on Activities Bug-Ya Basic Math Facts Computation Game   Fractions for the Confused and Bewildered AllOperations Go Figure With SciPi's Blog	Wise Owl Factory on TpT  Generic Writing and Reading Workshop PDF's UNITS 1-10 Test Reviews for Grade 1 Everyday Math Notebook Files Open-Ended Student Reading Strategies Posters for Grades 2 through 5 and Wise Owl Factory Language Arts CD Wise Owl Factory Book a Day Blog
Wise Guys on TpT  Wise Guys TpT Store Beginning of the Year 18 Lessons, Activities, and Worksheets on a CD Guided Reading Worksheets and Activities 38 Pages for Any Novel Creative Monthly Elementary Reading Log for September, Football Theme Wise Guys Blog	Game Subject Predicate Grammar File Folder Center Literacy Sentences Fall -Winter Ordered Pairs Pack Bundle Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas Smarty Pants Teaching Blog   Smarty Pants Teaching Store on TpT	All About Me Let's Make a Book I Can Draw, I Can Write Animal Friends Fun Pack African Jungle Animals Let's Make a Book Kinder Kay's Store on TpT
Rosshalde Pak's TpT Store First Week of an ESL-ELL-ELD Class BI-I Language Abilities All About You Questionaire 4th Grade Theme 1 Vocabulary Quizzes Journeys Education Shortlist Blog	TpT Store for First Grade Fanatics Reading Strategies Poster Pack Decoding and Comprehension Ice Cream Math Timed Test Pack Addition Pocket Chart Calendar Cards First Grade Fanatics Blog	Secondary Solutions  Secondary Solutions TpT Store Secondary Solutions Store on TpT  The Outsiders Literature Guide Common Core Standards Based Creative writing Activities to Help Build Confident Writers Activity Pack for The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Secondary Solutions Blog
Nyla's Crafty Teaching TpT Store Color Matching Game Ready Set Match 3D Shapes with their Nets and Properties WORD WALL OF COLORS for Back to School Nyla's Crafty Teaching Blog	Teched Out Teacher's TpT Store Super Science Set Weather and Climate Sports Theme Classroom Pack Pets Theme Classroom Pack Teched Out Teacher Blog	Clip art from:  Digi Web Studio

Back to School Giveaways!

My friend Lisa from Effective Teaching Solutions is doing daily giveaways on her blog next week, and Smarty Pants Teaching is participating! She'll have free printables you can download each day, along with daily prizes like handmade jewelry, gift cards, and free items from Teachers Pay Teachers! What's more, if you blog about the contest, Lisa will give you something free from her store! What?! That's a great deal!

Details about Lisa's Contest

Friday Five: 5 Ways to Use Images in Your Classroom

Looking for a way to spruce up your lessons for the new school year? With digital images readily available from several sources these days, try one of these quick tips to bring the power of nonlinguistic representation to the forefront in your classroom.

1. Build background by showing photos of ideas, items, or vocabulary that may be new to some of your students. Once as a part of a poetry unit, my students and I examined Spam Haiku. A few minutes in, a student asked, “What’s Spam?” I had no idea they didn’t know! A photo helped bridge the gap. The next day, I brought some in for them to try.
2. Help students remember concepts or vocabulary by pairing key terms with an image. I used a PowerPoint to do this, and let it run on a loop on our TV or projector during work times. It was a little distracting the first few minutes, but once everyone got used to it, I found that early finishers were watching it, reviewing all of our key concepts. It helps to throw in some trivia to keep them watching. One diagram I made with the basic shape tools in PowerPoint helped my students remember the relationship between force and distance, shown here. To set your slide show to loop continuously, go to the Slide Show tab and click the Set Up Show button. Check the box for Loop continuously until 'Esc'. Make sure you set timings for the slides on the Animations tab. Go to the far right side where it says Advance Slide and then Automatically After: and enter a number of seconds to view each slide. Click Apply to All just to the left and you are all set!
3. You say your room was perfectly organized and arranged before the kids came in and messed it all up? Take photos of the problem areas when they’re neat and orderly, and post the photos in the area with a note: “It should look like this.” This works great for areas like your classroom library, storage cabinets, and art supply shelves.
4. Use images to prompt students to write a few sentences as guided practice for a skill. For example, one interactive whiteboard lesson I have used teaches students about types of figurative language, and then asks them to come to the board and write an example using a photograph as a prompt.
5. Use images to create independent learning activities. You can use PowerPoint to create flashcards by putting one word on each slide and choosing "Handouts" when you print, like I did in my Simple Machines Resource Pack. Another option is to create a matching game where students match images with vocabulary. You can create actual cards that students can manipulate. (Here's a website with directions: Make Your Own Memory Game.) If you have a Quia account, you can also make custom computer memory matching games, or use games that others have created. You can also create memory games using interactive whiteboard software by hiding images and matching vocabulary behind interactive elements. For example, Mimio software has "balloons" that you can place in front of an object. Clicking the balloon "pops" it to reveal what is behind. With ActivInspire (Promethean) software, you can use the magic eraser.

Leave a comment telling us your ideas for using images in the classroom!

Web 2.0 Wednesday: Kerpoof! Your computer lab lesson plan is done!

It's my intention to highlight a different Web 2.0 tool each Wednesday, with ideas for how to use that tool in the classroom. Today’s Web 2.0 tool is a website called Kerpoof! On Kerpoof!, students use multimedia tools and their own creativity to engage in storytelling, art, and writing. No account sign-up is required to use Kerpoof, though you can have students sign up for an account if you want them to be able to save their creations on the website. No sign-up is required to save offline versions such as a JPEG of a card.

In the preschool computer lab, we have used the card making tool to create cards for special occasions such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Valentine’s Day. Students who are beginning readers or who can use a word bank can practice typing in relevant words to search for specific images they want to use. We also practice audience awareness by thinking about what the card recipient likes best rather than what we like best. The Make a Picture tool would also be great for my preschoolers to create scenes relating to the curricular theme of the month. Teachers or parents can extend the learning by having students dictate or write a sentence describing the picture.

The other tools are great for older kids. Students in the lower grades can practice spelling skills in an authentic way using the Spell a Picture tool. My rising 3rd grade daughter adores the Make a Movie tool, and has learned to write scripts, combine multiple scenes, and manage a storyboard timeline, even adding a soundtrack! I have yet to check out the Tell A Story tool, but it looks really interesting too. Check below for the grade recommendations for each tool.

Spell a Picture K-3
Make a Movie, K-8
Make a Card, K-8
Make a Drawing, K-8
Make a Picture, K-3
Tell a Story, 3-8

What ideas do you have for using Kerpoof! with your students? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Welcome to the Smarty Pants Teaching Blog!

Welcome to my blog! I'm glad you came by. Let me introduce myself. My name is Anna Colley. I am a Christian, a wife, a mother, and an educator. I taught 4th grade in a large metro Atlanta district for 11 years before taking a position last year as a school technology coordinator, my dream job. I now manage the technology program at a state-of-the-art public special-needs school serving preschoolers (ages 3 and 4) and young adults (ages 18-21). As a part of my job, I also teach computer lab to the 3 and 4 year old students. It has been an exciting change for me and a breath of fresh air! Now that I have a year under my belt, I'm feeling much more confident in my abilities as both an educational technology professional and a teacher of preschoolers.

I am also a Teachers Pay Teachers seller, which is a hobby that I really enjoy. I stumbled into this side job as a way to make a little extra money, and soon found that I really enjoy designing quality curriculum materials to share with other educators. Putting an extra polish on the teaching resources I was already using has been fun for me, and I have discovered a latent talent and interest in design in the process. I hope that you'll check out my materials, and let me know what you think!

Here are some FREEBIES that are available in my store:

Yearlong, Semi-Quarterly Book Share Project (Downloaded over 34,000 times! Also available in a comprehensive, editable version for $3.50)

Test Prep Homework

Pi Figure Coloring Sheet for Pi Day

When I'm Stuck on a Word Bookmarks

Customizable Class Valentine's List

Here are my most popular paid items:

Graph the Constellations, $3.00 (Over 150 sold!)

Author's Porpoise File Folder Game / Center, $3.00

Snowman Ordered Pairs Practice, $2.75

Fact and Opinion Card Sort, $2.50

Down on the Farm File Folder Game / Center (Cause and Effect), $3.00

I Have / Who Has: Fractions and Mixed Numbers, $2.00

Space Adventure File Folder Game / Center (Science: Solar System), $3.00

Westward Expansion PowerPoint, $3.00